<p>HH–Such an innocent I am! I didn’t realize the moderators could intervene and shut down threads if they got too nasty. …
Sjmom–I understand what you mean when you say “parents of 18 or 19-year-olds don’t SEND their sons or daughters to Iraq, regardless of the parents’ political ideas.” You’re right. I can’t even get my own daughter to go to the grocery store! … When some of us say “if you love the war so much, send your own kids,” it’s largely to try to snap people back to reality and to consider empathetically the personal loss involved. Our own kids aren’t going to Iraq and dying, but somebody’s kids are. … I think it also has to do with how you perceive this war. In the weeks after 9/11, I was so filled with rage I swear I would have shipped out to Afghanistan myself. A middle-aged, PMS-ing woman filled with rage and toting a gun. Imagine that. … But Iraq, to me, is a war without merit.</p>
<p>Dotty, you are a new poster, remember? How can you remember posts back to 9/11/06? You never knew Driver, except in your former life.</p>
<p>As to whether you can “send” your children to war, the premise for this argument is that this administration is choosing to “send” other people’s children to war, whereas not encouraging their own children to partake in the sacrifice. </p>
<p>It is really easy to support a war in which you have no possibility of personal loss. That’s all, and it isn’t all that difficult to understand, even for a new poster, such as yourself, Dot.</p>
<p>
and you know this how? </p>
<p>Omniscience?</p>
<p>Or does this bit of trickeration simply help to advance your argument? </p>
<p>Be careful with that…it made someone go off the reservation in another thread.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=297533&page=3[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=297533&page=3</a></p>
<p>I am so tired of the implication that anyone who supports the war in Iraq fails to empathize with the personal losses involved. I am tired of the comments that the Administration chooses to send other people’s children to war, while not encouraging their own to go. How can any of us possibly know what goes on in someone else’s home? </p>
<p>Since you all feel so comfortable labeling conservatives as heartless, I’ll chime in and suggest that the only way a liberal would defend this nation is when it’s too late to do anything.</p>
<p>Well, I’m tired of having a government run by creatures like Bush and Cheney, who never risked their own lives over anything (except maybe a pretzle), yet seem so obscenely enthralled with sending the sons and daughters of OTHER people off to die in a senseless war. And I’m sick and tired of their rabid supporters, who no matter what, blindly follow this morally bankrupt president and his morally bankrupt policy that’s causing hundreds of unnecessary deaths every month and creating a more fanatical terrorist network every single day.
And as for “the only way a liberal would defend his nation is when it’s too late to do anything.” What a ludicrous thing to say, especially when we have a pair of such noble cowards in the White House these days. Would you define Bush and Cheney as “liberal?” They certainly never did a thing to defend their country.</p>
<p>Some food for thought. But of course, Eisenhower, Bradley, and MacArthur were mere “generals.” How could they possibly know more about war than Bush and Cheney?</p>
<p>“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.” --Eisenhower </p>
<p>"I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes. –-General Macarthur</p>
<p>“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.” --General Omar Bradley</p>
<p>Well SJMOM2329: You have every right to take umbrage at people casting aside a whole category of people in one fell swoop, but then turning around and doing the exact same thing doesn’t tend to give you the moral high ground or a lot of credibility.</p>
<p>There are two levels on which to base the claim that this Administration can be seen as being cavalier with other people’s sons. 1) Not one of the people who was a driving force behind this policy served in the the wartime armed forces. Cheney: “I had other priorities.” Bush: National Guard. Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. There is a concept of the “chicken hawk.” Someone who is really belligerent, never having faced what it’s like to fight in a war. But I don’t really expect you to buy that characterization. Military men do, and they greatly resent cheap belligerence; it gets their boys killed for recklessness.</p>
<p>2) There is a generational difference going on too. My uncle was in the CIA in Vietnam and was there side-by-side with soldiers, even though his responsibility was interrogation. He is a moderate Republican. He, not prodded by anyone but himself, thinks that there is a vast swath of people who support this war, based on having talked to a lot albeit anecdotally, who would NEVER consider actually having their offspring go – and who would never have to because their offspring would never consider it either. They don’t have to; there’s not a draft in our generation. Poor people, yes poor conservatives and far fewer middle class and rich ones will go to fight this war, by and large, at the lower ranks. And one of my friends who has been such a partisan in favor of this war said to me, in response to my question, “well, what about our soldiers dying?” He really said: “Well, that doesn’t really matter to me. That’s just a normal cost.” As his kids go to private school and he lives a very well-to-do life, it is very easy for him to say this thing, especially 'cause there isn’t a chance in heck that any one of his sons would go fight in this war or one like it absent a full-on draft. The fact is we are asking our soldiers to make the ultimate sacrifice, but here at home the Administration doesn’t want people to really notice there’s a war going on. That’s why caskets coming home are not allowed to be photographed as they were in other wars or are lost in the luggage system in airports (as happened recently).</p>
<p>No, I can’t know what goes on in every persons household, but I can look at a family like Senator Jim Webb’s and agree with him that soldiers volunteering can expect sound judgement as our leaders to guage the possibility of success of a war against the risk of loss of the lives of our soldiers willing to give everything. He has a certain credibility on this score, wouldn’t you say?</p>
<p>Now would I say that anyone who supports this war in Iraq fails to empathize with the personal losses? That would be as ridiculous as people claiming that I am not supporting the troops because I am against this war. That was done a whole lot, especially during the early part of this war effort. The patriotism of people who were against this war was greatly held suspect as well. So if you’ll say that you never would do this or have never done this, that you would never cast these kind of aspersions, I’ll agree that one should not assume a “conservative” is recklessly indifferent to the fate of our soldiers.</p>
<p>As far as your blanket castigation of liberals goes, it doesn’t really deserve a response for the reasons I suggested above. I will say that the neo-conservatives who led us into this war have done far more to put this nation in danger than any other class of citizens who have power on the political scene. We will have spent over a trillion dollars to put Iraq squarely under the influence of a country that has sworn the destruction of a key ally and that is part of the so-called “axis of evil.” Wow, really good job. With conservatives of that stripe running the show, give me the defense of liberals like John F. Kennedy or FDR any day. Or perhaps Barack Obama who said, was it: “I am not anti-war, I am anti-stupid-war.” </p>
<p>As a liberal, I agreed with going to Afghanistan, and thought we should have stayed there to consolidate our gains. I was even in support of a harsher series of escalations to get Saddam Hussein to abide by the agreements following Gulf I. But the hubris associated with thinking that we’d be welcome as liberators to violently foist democracy on a society that didn’t have any custom of citizen participation at any meaningful level and on a society that lived in a state of suspended ethnic and religious strife? It is maddening enough to drive one to question whether or not the authors of this endeavor really care about the human cost involved. 'Cause the promise of its succeeding was a pipe dream that never would have done much to secure us here on our shores anyway.</p>
<p>And here’s more food for thought from a Nazi leader.</p>
<p>“Naturally the common people don’t want war. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” –Hermann Goering</p>
<p>“Someone explain to me why some of our poorest citizens are the most patriotic?”</p>
<p>Hope, belief and faith.</p>
<p>Hope that serving our country will bring about a better life for themselves and their children. </p>
<p>Belief in those commanding them will look out for their well being and do the right thing. </p>
<p>Faith that god will protect them.</p>
<p>While some are back and forth over what goes into the armed services. We really should care about what comes OUT of the armed services. If the armed services returns us better citizens all benefit. If the armed services return us broken people (mental or physical) we should help them without question. </p>
<p>Leadership has a moral responsibility to honor our troops commitment to this country by the wise use of the power our military wields. The current leadership doesn’t.</p>
<p>And you base your comments on leadership and military service on personal experience? I don’t agree with much of what Jim Webb says, but at least he speaks with the authority of first-hand knowledge. I’m sure that if any of the posters here had such experience with the military, you’d say so. Since that hasn’t happened, I’ll continue to rely on the information I get from those who are involved with military service.</p>
<p>So, that would be Jim Webb, and not Bush, Cheney, et al.</p>
<p>SJMOM: Oh, so now that’s the bar for credibility with you – that someone only has the right to an opinion if they served in the military? Ha. My response to that is manifold: 1) then why would you grant any credibility to the top people in this Administration who haven’t been in the military, many of them? 2) You must be really angry at Bush, who kept saying for the longest time that he deferred to the judgement of his military chiefs to determine troop levels, but when they started to disagree with his assessments while still in official capacities, he stopped saying this and now dictates troop levels as someone who never served in war; 3) You have nothing else to say to retort effectively to some of the things that have been written here, so now you are suggesting they are all invalid because of this new goal post of not being put forth with moral authority unless the person who wrote them served in the military that we’re supposed to aim for – anybody would see that that’s either a weak or childish response to having nothing better to say, you take your pick; 4) You should pay attention to the polls which have shown a steady decline in support by the military folks for the Iraq War, if you’re only willing to listen to military folks; 5) No I didn’t serve in the military, but I have gone to school side-by-side with officers, one of my best friends served in the military in Iraq until about 6 months ago, I had a friend high up in the Pentagon who was involved (to my great chagrin) in the planning for this war, and I have former classmates who worked on the civilian side of things in Iraq. 6) Finally, our armed forces serve at the behest of our civilian government, so if you are only willing to listen to the military, you aren’t listening to the bosses; and finally 7) the logic of your statement about Jim Webb is that he has moral authority because he was in the military and has a son there, but you don’t agree with what he says anyway. Therefore, you are at this point only willing to listen to people with military experience who agree with what you say.</p>
<p>Let me quote the sage for you: “It is better to open your eyes and say you don’t understand, than to close your eyes and say you don’t see.”</p>
<p>“And you base your comments on leadership and military service on personal experience? … I’ll continue to rely on the information I get from those who are involved with military service.”</p>
<p>And what about your own personal military experience? For my part, I’m not military and I’m not eager for other people’s kids to fight this obscene war on my behalf. As for relying on information from those “involved” with military service, that sure wouldn’t be Bush. Or Cheney. But it could be Wesley Clark or one of the many other much-despised “liberals” who actually served their country with honor and courage. And did you even bother to read the quotes I posted earlier from generals?</p>
<p>Of course it’s easy to write whatever one chooses about a thread that’s been deleted — can’t go back and check. But let’s be accurate. The military-related thread that got deleted had “Thanksgiving” in its title and morphed into a discussion of domestic abuse within military families. It was not about IQ. The long time poster who was evicted was asked to leave the forum after assailing another poster with profanity and crudely worded personal insults.</p>
<p>Not that I want to revive a previously deleted thread, but I take issue with the characterization that it was about “John Kerry’s negative remarks about the educational achievements of our troops.” It was about the heated debate over whether his remarks were a botched joke aimed at President Bush, not the troops, or if, as some maintain, he meant to say all along that not studying and doing well in school will get you (undereducated troops) “stuck in Iraq.”</p>
<p>I don’t remember the Flight 93 thread.</p>
<p>Oh gosh, the Thanksgiving thread. I have never, ever seen a poster lose it like that. It was kinda like the psycho astronaut story (not comparing the two people, just the bizarre, unexpected meltdown-ness), and it left one staring dumb-founded at the screen, wondering what happened.</p>
<p>Wow… this sounds like it will achieve legendary status: the Thanksgiving Thread. I can hear children asking: “Daddy, Daddy, did you actually see the Thanksgiving Thread?” “Did you post to it?” “What was that like?”</p>
<p>I remember it well; the thread began, as might be expected of a Thanksgiving thread during war time, by offering a paean to the troops overseas and far from their families and home. It then, as would be expected in such a place as cc, mutated into a debate over whether those very men and women, away from home over the holidays, were psychotic child abusers in need of sanction, restraint and mental care.</p>
<p>It was less than charming.</p>
<p>Some, of a wiser disposition than myself, might have said that the vitriol directed against the soldiers was inevitable. </p>
<p>Even a naif such as I should have know. Well,</p>
<p>…the echo just grew louder</p>
<p>Wrong again. Or rather, distorted again. </p>
<p>The thread started by the OP, who was the poster evicted for those who don’t remember, began as a paean to military personnel at home and abroad and invited others to tell of holiday meals shared with members of the armed forces. One poster offered his story of an abusive military childhood, centered around a particular Thanksgiving memory, and the OP went ballistic.</p>
<p>There was discussion about statistics related to incidence of abuse within military families versus civilian families, and there was certainly anger from the second poster about how the abuse was ignored by the military during his childhood years ago. There was no sweeping generalization that all members of the armed forces are “psychotic child abusers” and “vitriol” was not directed at service people in general for the faults of some. </p>
<p>If “…the echo just grew louder” is supposed to be a code for “here is someone else attacking our troops,” then you’re wrong about that too.</p>
<p>Dorothy, I haven’t been hearing much vitriol against soldiers here. Mostly, it’s been vitriol against what some of us see as an unjust war and irresponsible leadership. … I think most of us hope and pray that they come home safe and sound–each and every one of them. But they won’t, that’s a fact. Between this moment and tomorrow, assuredly one or more of our young men/women in uniform will be killed or maimed, or will witness something so horrible it will scar them emotionally for life.</p>
<p>Dot, the problem with all such conversations, is that rather than pretend all is well in troop LaLaland, and that all soldiers come home big strong men, having happily “served their country” and “protected our freedoms”, many come home broken people, both physically and emotionally.</p>
<p>To pretend that this isn’t true, as was the case at the Thanksgiving table (and again, your ability to see into the past, as a new poster with a mere 37 posts just convinces me of your omniscence) is folly.</p>
<p>We can regale the troops, but we can also look realistically at what happens to people who have been psychologically wounded by war. This isn’t hyperbole; it’s fact, and it doesn’t diminish the characters of these men and women, but it does speak to the horrors of war on the human psyche, which has been well documented.</p>